[MD] Free Will

[Matt Kundert]

Matt said:
It was to say that if determinism is the thesis that we are caught up 
in causal chains, then it is not destructive of moral reasoning 
because moral reasoning is something that occurs partly _because_ 
of causal chains.  Moral reasoning _needs_ causal chains.  And if 
that's the case, why on earth would determinism destroy moral 
reasoning?

DMB said:
How does "causality" work in moral reasoning? Maybe we could say 
that about formal logic if we were using "causal" in a figurative way 
but to press such a notion so far as to save moral reasoning within 
a deterministic view seems to stretch things well beyond the 
breaking point.

Matt:
I'm not sure I catch your drift here.

Steve articulated the idea that Dennett thinks that determin_ism_ is 
the only context in which free will makes sense.  While I assume 
that anything I think about free will is probably consistent with what 
Dennett thinks, I'm not very happy with that as a way to make the 
point (because of the history of the free will/determinism debate).  
I would not want to call Dennett's position a "determinism" (whatever 
Dennett's desires in the matter).  I prefer "Humean compatibilist."  
Or anything else.  Just not a position that already has the despised 
baggage of being opposed to free will.

I have no precise idea of what you're conceiving here as "a 
deterministic view," but let me say this about causality and logic.  
The figurative sense, I take it, you're taking about is logical 
implicature, such that if "if P, then Q" is true, then if you later get a 
P, that P _causes_ you to also have a Q.  That's not the sense of 
causality I was making use of to talk about moral reasoning in my 
claim that "moral reasoning needs causal chains."  I was talking 
about something much more abstract and general.

All I mean by "causal chain" is the relation that holds when we track 
_what_ is responsible for the occurrence of another _what_.  Such 
an abstract notion of cause can be used to track all kinds of 
phenomena, not just physical.  And, like Kant, I don't see how the 
world as we experience it could be made sense of with out it.  For 
moral reasoning to occur, for us to be able to blame or laud certain 
actions for their occurrence, it seems to me that we need to be able 
to track back the action to an actor ("actor" itself having the wide 
sense of "whatever picks out the thing responsible for the action").  
I don't see any reason why we shouldn't call the "line" that we track 
backwards and forwards on a "line of causation."  And all I meant to 
say was that such lines are a necessary precondition for moral 
reasoning to begin: you need to trace out lines of causal 
responsibility before you can judge the moral responsibility of 
various agents who've been tracked back to (you, the guy with the 
gun, your mother who raised you right, the government who 
provided a good education, etc.).

Matt